


How It's Going to Be

by fuckityfrank



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, If you're looking for, M/M, Small amounts of violence, Substance Abuse, then you are in the right place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 21:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6923623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckityfrank/pseuds/fuckityfrank
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Frank and Gerard's luck finally ran out, a crime spree met its end. Frank got away, Gerard wasn't as fortunate.</p><p>Gerard's been in prison for 17 years now, and Frank's lived every one of them by himself, patiently waiting for the day he can hold his lover again. However, the world isn't always a shiny, happy place. Frank gets some shocking news on the day Gerard is supposed to be released.</p><p>(So I looked at this for the first time in over a year and it looked like shit... So I've revised/rewritten the entire thing. It makes more sense now and it's just as sad and fucked up as before. Revised: 12/14/2017)</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It's Going to Be

**Author's Note:**

> I began this as an emotional outlet when I was in a dark place. Be warned that this doesn't have a happy ending and is full of possible triggers. If you're looking for heartbreak and angst, then you're in the right place. 
> 
> Follow Frank through the 5 stages of grief and then maybe follow me on [tumblr](http://fr4nkie.co.vu)?

Standing on the corner of Jade and Elm, Frank freezes when he hears sirens. Every time flashing lights illuminate his lonely bedroom, or the sound violates his ears, he feels like shaking. They say things fade with time, but Frank feels exactly the same as he did twenty years ago when sirens ruined his life. These sirens pass him, unaware of who he is, bothered by something else now.

He’d caught wind a week prior that Gerard was moved to the jail and would be released on parole today. He waits a few blocks away from the prison, for a second chance at life. His first had been doomed form the start in a story book way. Addict parents, shitty housing, and genetics made him a weak link. Small for his age and constantly sick, he was an easy target. The only way to combat it was to prove he wasn’t afraid of anything. However, when people know you’re willing to do whatever it takes to prove yourself, shit gets bad quick.

His fearless reputation stuck. Through friends of friends, he met guy named Mikey who brought him home and inadvertently changed his life with an introduction to his older brother. Slouchy yet formidable, His name was Gerard and wowza, was he pretty in an eerie way. At the time he’d assumed they wanted him for a small job. Drop off some drugs here, swipe a few things there…Done. He’d had no idea just how ingrained in the seedy underground of Jersey, Gerard and his brother were. But, when you’re young, impressionable, and have a crush, it’s easy to ignore the bad in pursuit of acceptance.

Over the years, Gerard adopted mutual feelings for him and Frank launched into what he thought would the best years of his life. He ran drugs while Mikey kept the books. Occasionally, Gerard went with him on an ‘errand’. Hook-ups all the time, cash flow, and friends…Easy to romanticize ‘cause, hey, what more could a guy want?

But when things go south in this line of work, they go south hard. All it took was one job going wrong, and Gerard ended up behind bars with 20 years and minimal chance of parole. Frank managed to get away, but only physically…part of him was locked away with Gerard.

His thoughts are torn from the past when a child tugs the sleeve of his jacket.

“Excuse me mister are you looking for something?”

Frank blinks down at the little girl holding onto his sleeve. Glancing around, he catches sight of a woman running up the street calling out to her.

“I’m looking for happiness,” he says softly, looking up at the maple trees dropping leaves around them.

The woman grabs the child’s arm and pulls her away, muttering apologies and quiet scolding’s. He focuses his attention on the jail down the street, where his last chance for a fulfilling life may be less than an hour away.

He waits and watches, listening carefully to the distant sounds of the suburban neighborhood behind him. Barking dogs and screaming children, things he had a chance at years ago. Things he's waiting to share with someone more important to him than a picket fence lifestyle and a golden retriever.

The minutes pass and the leaves continue to fall around him, drifting quietly in the breeze. Fall is his favorite season hands down. The crisp air combined with the sunlight beginning to filter its way through the clouds. He wonders if he’d be in a different place now if he’d had leaf piles to play in as a kid… or a present father to rake the piles. He waits, shifting his feet and trying not to stare too long at a single house on the off chance that someone catches him looking.

At 10:10am he walks down the street following the sidewalk where it meets barbed wire garnished, chain-link fencing. It’s existence adding extra security to the jail. Despite the chill to the air, he pulls his hand from the warmth of his pocket, and runs it along the links in the fence. He stops, returning his hand to his pocket, when the metal rattling draws the attention of a man across the street.

When he arrives at the front, it looks normal. Other than fences, the only thing that distinguishes it from other buildings is the sign out front loudly proclaiming, “Monmouth County Jail”.

When he checks his watch again it’s 10:26. Gerard should be stepping out of that building in less than five minutes. His life would be changing in less than 5 minutes. The hands dance around the face of his watch as the seconds go by. Anticipation twists in his chest as he watches for signs of movement. Two men walk out of the building and Frank frowns. Foreboding overtakes his excitement as the men get closer.

 _‘Where is he?_ ’

He goes over the faces again. It’s been seventeen years. Time changes people. In his head, he knows it’s useless to grasp at straws. Still, he scours the faces continuously until they are close enough to see him and then watches them walk down towards the parking lot. They wear expressions laced with nervousness and excitement. Frank wonders what Gerard’s face will look like. One of them should be Gerard. One of them should be walking home with him right now.

He panics a bit as he waits another ten minutes. Before he has time to think about it, he fixes his twisted jacket and forces his feet to walk towards the intimidating brick structure in front of him.

He can feel panic rising in his chest as he thinks about the headlines, “Ex-con Walks into Jailhouse Looking for Locked-Up Lover”. He pulls open one of the heavy metal doors and steps inside. He almost laughs at how similar it is to a high school. It has the same psychosis inducing fluorescent lights and bland, ugly, decor. It’s sterile and uncomfortable. He walks towards the small office, sealed in what he assumes is probably bulletproof glass. It feels weird to think that he just walked into a jail to ask about the man he robbed so many people with.

“Excuse me, I believe someone I know was supposed to be released on parole today.”

The older secretary looks up at him with boredom in her eyes. “Last name?”

“Way. Gerard Way.”

The secretary's eyes go wide. “Didn't you see in the news?”

Panic fills Frank’s heart as he stands there silent, hanging on her words. When she doesn’t continue he clears his throat and whispers, “No. I don’t read the news very often.”

Concern floods her gaze. “Poor bastard was murdered.”

Frank blinks at her. “Murdered in a prison?”

 “It happened here in the jail.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “What happened?”

The woman looks up through the glasses on the bridge of her nose at him.

He grips the counter in front of him tightly. “Please? I have to know.”

“It happened a couple months ago. All I know is that he was stabbed. I assume he was here awaiting his parole hearing?”

He frowns at her and a loud ‘what the fuck?’ slips out before he has a chance to stop it and she grimaces. “How could you let something like that happen?!”

She shakes her head with wide eyes as his panic increases.

“It’s a big jail, Sir. No one wants to work in a prison anymore. We’re short staffed and overcrowded.”

He turns, fear and panic clouding his mind, but her voice stops him. “I’m sorry, but who did you say you were?”

“I didn’t.” He faces her again and grabs the counter, desperately leaning towards her.

“Please tell me this is some kind of fucked up joke? He’s not actually dead right? He can’t be. Shit like this doesn’t happen in real life.”

She backs up despite the glass between them. “You wouldn't happen to be named Frank would you?”

His head shoots up, and her expression softens when she sees tears in his gaze. “Why?”

“Wait here?”

Frank nods, but he needs to get home and.. get home. She picks up a phone, watching him and talking inaudibly. That does it for him. He swivels to walk out the front but she quietly calls him over again. He doesn’t know what makes him turn back but he does.

"If you really are Frank, I think you should wait for a minute. There was a letter in his cell with ‘Frank’ on the front. I can have them bring it up.”

Frank blinks at her and rustles around in his pockets for his ID. She inspects it before handing it back to him, speaking into the phone a bit more, and hanging up.

“There’s an officer headed here with it now. It’s kind of weird luck you showed up. We didn’t have any way to find you without your last name.”

He nods, wiping his eyes.

When the letter is placed in his hands, he stuffs it in his pocket and thanks the receptionist. Chewing on his thumbnail, he shoves open the door and walks outside, stuck in his head. ‘It’s gotta be some kind of plan right? Stage a death in the jail and then pick a location to meet?’

He keeps walking well past his apartment and down the block with the letter burning a hole in his pocket and his heart numbing his mind. He walks in circles through the neighborhoods, rolling the news of Gerard's death around in his skull. It feels too impossible to be true. Too impossible that everything he’d been waiting so long for would never happen. He meanders until the sun has gone down, and then even longer. He walks until his legs feel like they are about to give out and only then does he walk home. He knows exactly what’s going to happen when he gets there and he can’t avoid it any longer.

 

 

Frank fumbles with the lock and then, he kicks the door shut behind him.  He yanks out of his jacket, and sheds his shoes before collapsing on the couch. His body feels like jello and his brain is numb. With shaking fingers, he tears open the seal and unfolds the letter inside. It takes him a good 5 minutes to work up the nerve to read it but the curiosity is eating away at him. He begins to read.

The letter opens with “Frankie,” and that alone is enough to make Frank want to cry and smile at the same time.

 

 

_Frankie,_

_I miss you so much baby! I wanted to write sooner but it felt safer to wait. I’ll be out soon anyway… hopefully in a few weeks. I’ll be at the jail for a few months while I wait for my hearing and then maybe for a bit after. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to seeing your face. The only thing that keeps me alive in here is thoughts of you living out there. I thank whatever being watches over us that you were smart and stayed out of here._

Frank pauses for a minute, letting the tears well up in his eyes. It’s a weight off his shoulders knowing that Gerard didn’t blame him for getting away.

_Each day without you takes another piece of my heart. Prison strips away who you are. I feel like as the days go by I become someone else and I’m not sure I like the direction I’m going in. I long for a day when I can touch your face. I feel like you could put my soul back in my body. If anyone could, it’s you. I miss your eyes and the feel of your lips. I miss your humor and your wit and your unique perspective on life. I love you with my entire soul and I can’t wait to see your face again… to hold your hands and kiss your neck. Is it selfish of me to pray you haven’t found another man?_

_Full of love,_

_Gerard_

 

Frank finishes reading with his heart exploding in a piercing mix of agony and love. His tears roll down his neck, collecting in the hollows of his collar bones. Gerard had been dead for months. Frank had been waiting for seventeen years for a new hand at life. Waiting for one source of happiness in this overall shitty world. Seventeen years of hiding and waiting for nothing.

He drops the letter on the couch and stands shakily. Walking into the kitchen, he grabs a nearly full bottle of vodka out of his freezer and walks towards his room. He swigs straight out of the bottle, gagging on the chemical burn in his throat. He steps into his room and slams the door shut behind him, walking straight to his bed and sitting down heavily. He sumps over on his mattress and stares at the wall for a good 30 minutes, swigging the alcohol between the waves of tears. Every time he thinks he might be able to stop crying, he chokes and thinks of something else that makes him wail. He sniffs through his stuffy nose and roughly wipes his face off with his arm.

He stands up too fast and only then, does he truly realize how drunk he is. He wobbles across his room and yanks open his top dresser drawer, leaning heavily on top of it to keep from falling to the ground. He paws through his socks until his hand brushes against the small yellow envelope hidden at the bottom. Sliding his finger under the lip of the envelope, he untucks it and dumps its contents onto the top of his dresser. Two wedding bands plink against the wood. One silver and one black.

There isn’t even a word to explain the way he’s feeling right now but the suffocating pressure in his chest won't go away. He slips the black ring onto his left hand and lets out an angry sob. How could Gerard die on him like this. He shakes his head and snarls. _How could I have wasted so much of my life waiting. What kind of god lets this happen?_

He slams his hand across the top of his dresser, scattering books and knicknacks and knocking the remaining wedding band onto the floor. He looks at the tear warped reflection of himself in the mirror hanging above it. Red swollen eyes, lips twisted into a grimace, and a tear streaked face stare back at him.  He slams his fist against it and it shatters the mirror. Spidering cracks slice up the side of his hand and large slivers of reflective glass bounce off his dresser.

He ignores the pain in his hand and now his feet as he steps on the glass. He rips the still open drawer out of the dresser and uses both arms to fling it across the room. It hits the wall and leaves a dent in the sheetrock. Fresh saline floods his vision and with a burst of rage, he rips out the other two drawers and does the same thing. He wipes his eyes with his lacerated hand, smearing blood down the side of his face but he can’t feel the difference. He stomps over to his bookshelf and screams as he knocks row after row of dvd’s, books, and keepsakes off the shelves, sending them crashing to the floor. He kicks his things out of his way with his bruised, lacerated feet and then rips each shelf out before he topples the whole thing. He tears the posters off his walls, not even bothering to crunch them into balls, letting them drift slowly to the ground.

He stumbles back toward his bed where the vodka has spilled and soaked into his sheets. He drains the last of the acid liquid into his mouth and throws it blindly across the room. It hits the window and the glass bottle chips the pane. Not even noticing the crack, he throws himself onto the mattress and sobs into his arms, ignoring the cold alcohol seeping through his shirt.

 

.::..::..::.

 

When he blinks awake, the first thing that he notices when his eyes focus is the dust particles dancing in the sunlight, making the room look like it's full of glitter. The second thing he notices is the smell of vodka. Then finally, the blood crusted on his hands and sheets.

He feels… empty. Hopeless, lost, beat up and broken. Everything is over. Life is canceled.

He stands up and ignores the sharp pain when glass crunches under his feet. He walks back down the hall to the living room, smearing blood wherever he steps. He opens a cupboard and grabs a bottle of whiskey on his way to the bathroom.

He takes a piss and then pulls open the medicine cabinet, digging through the bottles. He grabs three prescription bottles from the back. Ambien for insomnia, Klonopin for anxiety, Clonidine for high blood pressure. He pours them out on the counter where they fall, skittering against the ceramic surface. A few of them slide off the edge and bounce on the tile under his feet.

He scoops 6 pills into his unsliced hand and washes them down with the whiskey. Gagging, he does it again with four; six was a bit to many. He keeps swallowing until the pile of pills is mostly gone and the whiskey is blurring his vision, His head feels heavy. He stumbles when he steps away from the sink, the lack of support startling him. Back first, he hits the wall and slides down it until he’s sitting in a ball against it. He folds his arms across the top of his knees and lets his head fall against them. His eyes are burning, but there’s nothing left for him to cry out.

 _Why did things end up this way? How could this possibly be real._  Fuck, if only he’d been bold enough to send Gerard a letter. Maybe if he had indulged one of the hundreds of times he considered it, he would have somehow been able to stop this. Butterfly effect right? A depressed lovebird writes a letter and in turn, a con artist doesn’t die?  He’d been too worried about some guard finding a connection.

 He lets the air out of his lungs in a huffy sob and looks at the floor. His lungs can’t seem to draw enough oxygen. Like they are falling asleep as fast as he is. It’s getting harder for him to keep his eyes open.

There are pills scattered around the floor below the sink. He watches them blur and rattle away from him across the floor. They aren’t really moving, he knows that in the back of his head, but the Ativan makes the movement seem all too real. His arms fall to his sides and he slouches forward, putting his palms in front of himself to try and get up. His hands don't feel like they’re a part of his body anymore. He stares at them, watching as they bend away into nothing in front of him. When he leans toward the sink to try and get to his feet, he topples forward, slamming his head into it. Breathing in short, labored gasps he manages to get a grip with bloody palms, and haul himself upright.

Lurching out of the bathroom, he slips in the fresh blood leaking from wounds on his feet. He wobbles down the hall, leaning heavily on the walls. Blood from his hands smears there as well, leaving a gory breadcrumb trail of his last moments.

Once he makes the rough journey to his room, Frank doesn’t even bother to try and avoid the broken mirror on the floor. He didn’t before. It would be pointless to start now. The dull wave of relaxation from the Ativan is more than welcome. Frank focuses on it instead of how hard it’s getting to breathe and move. He collapses onto his mattress, not about to even _try_ getting under the duvet. Letting his eyes rest at last, he sucks in slow, shallow breaths. He can't seem to remember how to inflate his lungs. He wonders how long it will be before the manager comes to collect his rent and finds him like this. Will he seem asleep or dead. will it be obvious?

  
In the end he doesn’t care because he tried for so long and he’ll finally be seeing Gerard again after all these hopeless years. They’ll love, they’ll laugh, they’ll cry, they’ll dance again...and Frank knows, it’s better off this way.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://fr4nkie.co.vu)?


End file.
